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| - Egypt is a big country with memorable culinary touchstones that, for reasons beyond me, don't turn up very often in restaurants over here. Not that Montreal doesn't have healthy Eastern Mediterranean representation in its many Lebanese spots, but Egyptian food, not so much. When this mystery starts to grate on you, this restaurant is the solution. You will find extremely competent koshary, the Egyptian street food par excellence, consisting of lentils, chewy fried onions, rice, chickpeas, macaroni and angel hair-like pasta, all swaddled in warmly seasoned tomato sauce scented with cinnamon and allspice. There is venerable molokhiya, the national dish of stewed jute leaves and herbs -- the texture is a bit like okra, mucilaginous and pleasingly tart -- alongside rice and meat, in this case a generous roast quarter chicken. One of my companions, choosy about his ful medames, found it right up to Cairo standards. This is a reliable spot for essential Egyptian dishes done right at an attractive price.
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